Kingdom Building

July 22, 2019

Scripture Reading: Hosea 1:2-10

When the Lord first spoke through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea, ‘Go, take for yourself a wife of whoredom and have children of whoredom, for the land commits great whoredom by forsaking the Lord.’ So he went and took Gomer daughter of Diblaim, and she conceived and bore him a son.

And the Lord said to him, ‘Name him Jezreel; for in a little while I will punish the house of Jehu for the blood of Jezreel, and I will put an end to the kingdom of the house of Israel. On that day I will break the bow of Israel in the valley of Jezreel.’

She conceived again and bore a daughter. Then the Lord said to him, ‘Name her Lo-ruhamah, for I will no longer have pity on the house of Israel or forgive them. But I will have pity on the house of Judah, and I will save them by the Lord their God; I will not save them by bow, or by sword, or by war, or by horses, or by horsemen.’ –Hosea 1:2-7

We devote a lot of time and energy worrying about things that have few lasting ramifications and ignoring the things that have major consequences. I recently returned from a 2000-mile plus road trip staying at seven different hotels and stopping at numerous restaurants and gas stations. I do not know when I noticed that most of the places, I stopped at to eat or get gas and most of the hotels I stayed in had at least one or two single-user restrooms marked for anyone including families with small children. A year or so ago one would have thought the world was coming to an end if one had to share a restroom with a transgender person. Twenty years ago, when I arrive at the airport in Sweden with my church choir and most of us headed to find the restrooms, there was only one in the area where we arrived. It had a bunch of private stalls each including both a urinal and a toilet.  The sinks for washing hands were in the open. I thought at the time what a grand idea. It brings equality to the time waiting for access for everyone.

Most major empires failed due to rotting from within driven by greed and lust for power. Rome had the greatest army in the world when it met its empire’s demise which resulted from its inability to address climate change and staggering health epidemics caused by its poor development of needed infrastructure like sanitation and lack of quality health care for everyone. The plague did not care how rich its victims were. Sound familiar?

Prayer:
Dear Lord and Father of mankind,
forgive our foolish ways;
reclothe us in our rightful mind,
in purer lives thy service find,
in deeper reverence, praise*. Amen

*First verse of Dear Lord and Father of Mankind by John Greenleaf Whittier see at https://hymnary.org/text/dear_lord_and_father_of_mankind

All scriptures are quoted from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright 1989, 1995, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights are reserved.